Financial Advice Columnist falls for $50K scam

[jollystomper]

This is not to make fun of this person. I truly feel sorry for her. It is to show (a) that anyone, if not careful, can fall for a scam, and (b) the type of scam that was used. Someone claiming to be from the CIA convinced her to hand over $50K in cash in a shoe box.

A summary of the situation:

https://news.yahoo.com/financial-journalist-hands-50k-cash-203808974.html

A New York Magazine financial columnist has described how she handed fraudsters $50,000 (£39,690) in cash after she fell for a “cruel and violating” scam.
Charlotte Cowles was conned into thinking she was a victim of identity theft and there were warrants out for her arrest for cybercrimes, money laundering and drug trafficking.

...

“Now I know this was all a scam – a cruel and violating one but painfully obvious in retrospect”, she said.
“I felt violated, unreliable; I couldn’t trust myself ... I still don’t believe that what happened to me could happen to anyone, but I’m starting to realise that I’m not uniquely fallible,” she wrote.
“Either way, I have to accept that someone waged psychological warfare on me, and I lost.”

The source (and longer, but interesting) article, written by the columnist:

https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html

The man on the phone knew my home address, my Social Security number, the names of my family members, and that my 2-year-old son was playing in our living room. He told me my home was being watched, my laptop had been hacked, and we were in imminent danger. “I can help you, but only if you cooperate,” he said. His first orders: I could not tell anyone about our conversation, not even my spouse, or talk to the police or a lawyer.

Now I know this was all a scam — a cruel and violating one but painfully obvious in retrospect. Here’s what I can’t figure out: Why didn’t I just hang up and call 911? Why didn’t I text my husband, or my brother (a lawyer), or my best friend (also a lawyer), or my parents, or one of the many other people who would have helped me? Why did I hand over all that money — the contents of my savings account, strictly for emergencies — without a bigger fight?

...

And while this is harder to quantify — how do I even put it? — I’m not someone who loses her head. My mother-in-law has described me as even-keeled; my own mom has called me “maddeningly rational.” I am listed as an emergency contact for several friends — and their kids. I vote, floss, cook, and exercise. In other words, I’m not a person who panics under pressure and falls for a conspiracy involving drug smuggling, money laundering, and CIA officers at my door. Until, suddenly, I was.

 

[athena53]

I'm glad she was courageous enough to share her story (although it made sense to do that since she was a financial writer). Notice that the scammers did NOT have her full SS number; it appeared they had the last 4 digits, which many places seem to think it's OK to demand. "Can I have the last 4 digits of your Social?" is asked so casually. It's only 4 digits, right? (If they know when wand where you were born they may be able to generate the first 5.)

I almost fell for an e-mail from someone pretending to be my priest (didn't notice it was from a yahoo address instead of his usual Gmail although my Gmail program pointed that out to me). He needed gift cards to give to some women in the hospital, too busy to mee, just buy them and give him the numbers... I was almost out the door to buy them when I remembered gift card scams and it may have been from a reference here. One of our parishioners, who could ill afford it, actually complied.

 

[Sunset]

While at a restaurant I got an email from a neighbor near my cabin, asked me to help him out as he was ill right now.
I asked him where he was and how could I help.
He emailed back asking me to buy gift cards and ...... . I realized he didn't answer my questions and then realized the email was wrong on the reply. First one had been his email , or looked like it, but the second was different and wrong... Then I remembered that Gift Cards are a NO NO.

 

[Nash]

I don't get it. How can anyone fall for that? She must be the most naive person ever. WOW!

 

[jazz4cash]

I don't get it. How can anyone fall for that? She must be the most naive person ever. WOW!

I thought maybe it was made up.

 

[Aerides]

I don't get it. How can anyone fall for that? She must be the most naive person ever. WOW!

If you read it, you'll conclude anything but.

 

[LateToFIRE]

I've been a victim of the email scam. Without getting into the details, the weird thing was that the email appeared to come from a business partner I know and trusted, the sender replied to my questions with legit sounding responses, and the request made sense at the time. So, I venmo'd $1000 into the black hole of the internet. Come to find out I was scammed. They just happened to catch me in a situation that lined up with their narrative - probably tried thousands of emails, I just happened to be the one that made sense. In hindsight I should have called my friend to verify, not done everything electronically. Fortunately, the dollar amount wasn't too great - but the embarrassment factor was priceless. Lesson learned.

 

[jazz4cash]

I got a request from a work colleague on my personal email. He was out of town and needed a favor. He asked me to buy gift cards and send them to his niece for her birthday. The email seemed scripted so I called him on the phone. Everyone in his contacts got the email.

 

[mystang52]

On occasion I'll read about a victim falling for a scam in my local news feed, or read stories like this one. My first reaction is always "how stupid can this person be?" but the prevalence of these successful scams then leads me to an easier second conclusion: these fraudsters are "good" at their game.

ETA: DW once got one of those "Grandma I need money, I was arrested" calls. At the time, my grandson was 8 years old.

 

[Al18]

The scammers have likely pieced together a lot of personal info released in data hacks over the years and have a well scripted story and a number of people playing various roles. They also tell the victim they cannot hang up the phone or they will be arrested by local law enforcement. They are creating a sense of urgency that most people can’t deal with. The right thing to do is just hang up, but it’s very difficult to do.

 

[disneysteve]

ETA: DW once got one of those "Grandma I need money, I was arrested" calls. At the time, my grandson was 8 years old.

My mom got one of those from her “grandson”. Only problem is she’s got one grandchild, our daughter. The scammer had a 50-50 shot and blew it.

 

[LateToFIRE]

There was an IRS scam a few years ago that almost roped in a deadbeat relative. They called him on cell phone, claimed he was in big trouble over unpaid taxes, stated there will be a warrant for his arrest issued if hang up, told him you to give them a credit card right then and there else... Well, funny thing, he was actually late on taxes, so it all sounded legit. But, somehow the call got cut off, which them gave him time to think it thru. But, he was about to shell out a couple grand he didn't have. Imagine how many people that one collected on.

 

[athena53]

Sadly, most of the scam attempts I get seem to be church-related. Both our current Bishop and her predecessor have had people impersonate them in e-mails.

One I detected immediately was a fellow church member who e-mailed me Sunday evening from one of the countries ending in -stan. He'd been sent there on emergency business, his wallet was stolen, yadda, yadda.

Problem was, I'd seen him in church in Kansas City that morning.

 

[Music Lover]

It doesn't help that so many people keep answering those Facebook quizzes:

If you were a blues musician your name would be:

- your favourite colour
- the name of your first pet
- your mother's maiden name

 

[audreyh1]

My mom got one of those from her “grandson”. Only problem is she’s got one grandchild, our daughter. The scammer had a 50-50 shot and blew it.

Even easier when you have no grandchildren and your young nephews live overseas.

 

[MarieIG]

There are so many scams:

I have gotten the "This is your grandson call." It made me think you should always turn down someone claiming to be your relative asking for money. If they really are your relative - they will find you.

I had my computer locked "by the FBI" who claimed that I was a child pornographer. This was at work so I went into the head partner's office and let him know and called IT who mentioned that it was a well known scam. (It would have been nice had they circulated the info to the employees if they had known about it.)

Actually a lot of suspicious e-mails at work - which I promptly forwarded to IT, to determine whether they were a scam or real business. A frequent, obvious scam, was a request to deposit a check.

I received a text while driving to the training station to go into the City for a work appointment - allegedly - from the head of the firm asking for a favor. I responded to that one - and was asked to buy gift cards. It occurred to me that he would not be pulling me off an assignment to go buy gift cards, and I called my direct boss to reach out to him. Turned out our firm had been targeted previously. Again - why weren't we informed. (I took it upon myself to send out a firm-wide e-mail.) Thereafter, the firm received several warnings about this fraudster.

One of my credit cards was compromised - but the CC company picked up on it, woke me up at 7 am on a Saturday to ask if I made a 50 cent charge, closed the card, and sent a new one.

The "IRS" called and threatened to arrest my husband for back taxes. I put them on hold.

Maybe the closest was when I called one of my banks about an online issue, the rep told me it was a problem with my computer and somehow I got switched over to a "techie" who wanted to access my computer bill me for fixing my computer. He started asking for too much information. I hung up, turned off my computer and pulled the plug on it. (I am not exactly a techie, but I didn't hear back from him.)

 

[rk911]

I received an email last week purportedly from a distant acquintance I hadn't seen or spoken to in a while asking how I was and could I help him with something. Sure, I responded. The follow-up asked if I could buy some gift cards for him as he was "having issues" with HIS CC. My reply...."Get lost, creep. My buddy would never ask me to do that, creep!"

I dug around and found my buddy's email...which was different from the one used by the scammer...and let him know what had happened.

 

[jazz4cash]

Ok I’ll admit it. I’ve wasted WAAY too much time watching youtube scambait videos. White hat hackers. It’s unbelievable what people fall for. People think they have romantic relationships with celebrities! It’s like some type of mass hysteria.

 

[Fermion]

I always wonder who falls for these things, then I remember George Carlin:

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

 

[athena53]

Gmail pretty much saves every To/From e-mail address with which you've had contacts- not just the ones you deliberately add to your Contact list. When I was on our HOA Board, the previous President always emphasized that e-mails to the whole neighborhood should be sent with all the names in the bcc list. That way if your e-mail account is taken over by a scammer who sends out a "Please help- I need gift cards" e-mail it will minimize the number of people who get it. I once got one of these scam e-mails from a woman who belonged to the same nonprofit I did. She and I had never e-mailed each other directly but had been in the recipient list on many group e-mails.

A good practice, which our current HOA President ignores.

 

[karen1972]

These types of scams people are much more likely to fall for. They put you into a severe emotional state as you believe you or your loved ones life is in danger.

My honey was at work one time and received a phone call saying they had me hostage and were going to hurt me, they then had someone pretend to be me screaming in the background. He immediately went into panic mode, but he was at work and his coworker was like what is going on, he started to brush her off but then she convinced him to write it down.. and she realized it was a scam and texted me, I texted him back and he snapped out of it.

His reaction was just I was so scared they were hurting you and thus why one reacts like that...no different than being held at gunpoint and giving someone all your belongings.

Scammers know that as long as they make someone scared enough for real immediate harm to your family (ie telling her her kid was in the living room and she was being watched). you lose all normal thought process. They knew my name (easy enough to get from any of these horrid companies that sell your data to people finders, etc.), knew we lived together, and assumed at 10 he would be at work, not near me and basically the same time I always go out for a run or gym so making it even more plausible in his mind.

 

[pacergal]

I never answer calls unless it is from a person in my contact list, who I would expect a call from. Even businesses in my contact list go to voicemail, all others go to VM also.

But some scams are fairly easy to understand how the person fall for it.
If I was a young mom at home, they said they could "see" my baby in the living room, and had all of that info, it would put me on high alert and would be frightening. My thought would go to protection mode.
I would hope I would hang up and call 911. But you never know how you would react.
The writers mistake was to stay on the phone that long, so they could reel her in more.

 

[GenXguy]

Her story ended where mine starts. I won't answer the phone.

I never answer the phone from anyone that's not in my contacts or that I'm not specifically expecting a call from. If Amazon showed up, I would immediately be suspicious. I do get occasional voicemails such as warning me about not paying taxes and that the authorities are going to take me into custody. I also occasionally get emails from someone saying they have been watching and recording me doing nasty things on the webcam while watching adult entertainment, lol, which is funny because I use a desktop computer with no web cam and have never been to adult entertainment sites. Of course, when they shoot those out to a large number of people, it's going to strike home with some of them who will think it's real.

The most recent scam I was targeted with was after signing up for a state job search website. I got an email from a legitimate company name, but they were rattling on about what models of computer equipment I would be using remotely from home and that any funds left over from the purchase would be a bonus, plus the salary was higher than I would have expected. They setup an interview time which was going to require me to install an app - it was being done by texts! So it set off red flags in multiple ways to me as almost certainly a scam. Sure enough, after I looked into it, the domain on the email address was a little different the the real company and registered to a different entity. Of course, I never responded.

Anyway, I liked the detailed story she gave. I am always seeing news about these scams, so I figure the more details I read about them, the less likely I am to fall victim.

 

[Sue J]

I don't remember the year, but my son was flying from Cleveland, OH to Boise, Idaho for work. He had a layover or plane change in Denver. But the airline, I think it was United, had an issue with the system that documented plane weights or something and halted all their flights. He was stuck in Denver. DH's mom lived outside of Denver. Son called us to tell us he was stuck in Denver and we told him to call his grandmother. We also told him that this is going to sound sketchy to her so she could call us to verify if needed.

It was all over the news so she believed him and he got transportation out to her house. No flights to Boise over the weekend so he stayed and had a really good time!

But that story sounds very close to the scams.

 

[Gumby]

These types of scams people are much more likely to fall for. They put you into a severe emotional state as you believe you or your loved ones life is in danger.

My honey was at work one time and received a phone call saying they had me hostage and were going to hurt me, they then had someone pretend to be me screaming in the background. He immediately went into panic mode, but he was at work and his coworker was like what is going on, he started to brush her off but then she convinced him to write it down.. and she realized it was a scam and texted me, I texted him back and he snapped out of it.

His reaction was just I was so scared they were hurting you and thus why one reacts like that...no different than being held at gunpoint and giving someone all your belongings.

Scammers know that as long as they make someone scared enough for real immediate harm to your family (ie telling her her kid was in the living room and she was being watched). you lose all normal thought process. They knew my name (easy enough to get from any of these horrid companies that sell your data to people finders, etc.), knew we lived together, and assumed at 10 he would be at work, not near me and basically the same time I always go out for a run or gym so making it even more plausible in his mind.

I'm pretty sure anyone who gets that call about me would say "just keep that worthless SOB".